Rita Duffy: Portrait of an Artist

Rita Duffy:  Portrait of an Artist

Editorial

Simulcast of BBC One Northern Ireland in high definition. From 24/10/2012

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

BBC Two - Rita Duffy: Portrait of an Artist

Visual artist Rita Duffy tells how she has reflected NI society and politics in her work.

Visual artist Rita Duffy talks about how she has reflected NI society and politics in her work over the last four decades and why her latest project explores the Covid pandemic. 

Rita Duffy is one of Northern Ireland’s best known visual artists with an instantly recognisable style which can be seen in her many paintings. Over four decades, her work has explored the world around her and has dealt with difficult subject matter such as the Troubles, the political situation in Northern Ireland and the role of women in our society. Now, her new work, Anatomy of Hope, looks at the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Throughout, Rita has avoided some of the self-regarding tendencies of the art world and tried to engage with her audience in as direct a way as possible, often by going out into communities and involving ordinary people in her projects.

This documentary tells the story of her life and work through an interview with the artist herself, as well as archive of her at work dating back to the mid-1980s. It traces a timeline from Rita’s childhood in Belfast to the present day by reviewing key pieces of her output, which include early works such as her Siege paintings, which depict a divided society, to her Drawing the Blinds portraits at the Divis Flats in Belfast, and her proposal to tow an iceberg to Belfast to explore the legacy of the Troubles. 

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Rita Duffy: Portrait of an Artist

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